The present invention relates to a hanger that hangs a duct (hereinafter referred to as xe2x80x9cductxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cair-conditioning ductxe2x80x9d ) having a box-shaped cross section and used for air-conditioning or ventilating equipment as one of building equipment, and a method for hanging the duct using the hanger.
The applicant filed an application relating to a novel air-conditioning duct in 1996. Thereafter, based on this application, the applicant filed an application of improved invention on May 9, 1997 (Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. Hei. 10-47741).
The novel duct can be assembled easily and quickly as compared to the conventional duct, and is innovative because it can be assembled in a duct installing place. In addition, this novel duct is superior in configuration because assembling thereof can be conducted with a minimum of noise unlike conventional assembling. That is, this duct is advantageous in that it can be assembled without troubling people living in neighborhood or other operators during assembling in an area adjacent to housing areas or the like or in a construction site where another construction or installation is being conducted concurrently.
The duct can be easily and reliably held and hung by using the hanger encompassed by the above-identified application. With the hanger, it is not necessary to use a pair of right and left hanging members to hang the duct, unlike the conventional hanging method in which the duct is placed on the angle member horizontally mounted. That is, with this hanger, as shown in FIGS. 15, 16, the duct can be hung at a right or left portion independently in the longitudinal direction of the duct. In brief, the position at which the duct is hung can be selected with high degree of freedom.
However, in case of the hanger of FIG. 15, since the duct is engaged by its gravitational force, it might be disengaged when an acceleration is applied thereon from the opposite direction of the gravitational force, for example, when an earthquake occurs. In case of the hanger of FIG. 16, since two members are fixed by means of screws provided at a lower end of a hanging member (in this case, hanging rod), a hanging operation takes a lot of trouble, and during this operation, another operator must support the duct from below.
The present invention has been developed under the circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide a hanger and a hanging method using the hanger in which a hanging operation can be easily and quickly performed and a duct is prevented from being disengaged even when an upward external force (acceleration) is applied on the duct.
To solve the above-described technical problem, according to the first invention, there is provided a duct hanger in which an engagement means is inserted and engaged in a groove-shaped space between a guide rail protruding in a longitudinal direction of the duct and one of peripheral faces of the duct in which the guide rail is formed to allow the duct to be hung from a direction orthogonal to the longitudinal direction of the guide rail, the duct hanger comprising: a contact portion that makes surface contact with the one peripheral face of the duct; a tongue piece protruding from the contact portion toward a tip end thereof and constituting the engagement means; a base portion bent continuously with the contact portion and away from the duct so as to form a guide rail accommodating space between the base portion and the tongue piece; a pressing portion formed continuously with the base portion, for pressing a face adjacent to the one peripheral face toward a tip end of the tongue piece to allow the guide rail to be securely retained between the pressing portion and the tongue piece; and means for mounting a hanging member to the base portion.
According to the duct hanger so structured, by inserting and engaging the tongue piece into the groove-shaped space between the guide rail and the one peripheral face in the state in which the contact portion is in contact with the one peripheral face of the duct, the face adjacent to the one peripheral face can be pressed by the pressing portion of the hanger, and in this state, the duct can be hung from the direction orthogonal to the guide rail. In other words, in the state in which the guide rail is accommodated in the guide rail accommodating space, the duct can be hung by pressing the face adjacent to the one peripheral face to enable the guide rail to be securely retained between the tongue piece and the pressing portion via the face adjacent to the one peripheral face. Therefore, in this state, by mounting the hanger to the hanging member by means of the mounting means, the duct can be hung by the hanging member hanging from a desired portion of the ceiling or the like.
Consequently, the duct can be easily and quickly hung by using the hanger, and thus hung duct remains engaged if the upward acceleration is applied thereon, because the duct is securely retained between the pressing portion and the tongue piece.
In the duct hanger according to the first invention, the pressing portion is coplanar with the base portion and, when the duct is hung, the pressing portion is bent toward the guide rail to allow the guide rail to be securely retained between the pressing portion and the tongue piece as described above. Since the guide rail can be fixed between the pressing portion and the tip end of the tongue piece with very little space, the duct can be hung without xe2x80x9cplayxe2x80x9d even if an external force causing disengagement is applied on the duct.
The duct hanger may be provided with means formed between the base portion and the pressing portion, for facilitating bending. Thereby, the pressing portion can be easily bent by using a commercially available tool (for example, plyer, pench, or a monkey spanner) and without the need for a large force.
In the hanger, the means for facilitating bending is constituted by a penetrating hole formed at the center of a bent portion. Thus, the facilitating means can be formed by a simple process.
In the hanger, the tongue piece and the contact portion are formed as a flat plate, and the base portion is formed as a flat plate parallel to the tongue piece and the contact portion such that the base portion is bent continuously with the contact portion and toward the opposite side of the duct with respect to the tongue piece. This configuration is simple. In addition, this configuration is preferable because the buckling load resistance of the tongue piece and hence, the load resistance to the stress from the duct can be increased, and a contact area can be increased to thereby reduce the influence of an impact load on the duct.
In the hanger, the mounting means may be constituted by a penetrating hole formed in an extended portion that is formed at a tip end of the base portion and bent by substantially 90 degrees with respect to the base portion and away from the guide rail.
Also, in the hanger, the mounting means may be constituted by a penetrating hole formed in an extended portion formed at the tip end of the base portion so as to be coplanar with the base portion.
It is preferable that the penetrating hole is an elongated penetrating hole opened toward one end side of the extended portion, because the hanging member can be laterally inserted to be simply mounted to the hole in the state in which the hanger is engaged with the duct.
According to the second invention, there is provided a method for hanging a duct having a box-shaped cross section and provided with right and left guide rails protruding in a longitudinal direction of the duct so as to form a groove-shaped space between the guide rail and one of peripheral faces of the duct in which the guide rail is formed, by using the guide rails and the hanger according to the first invention, comprising: inserting a tongue piece of the hanger into the groove-shaped space of the duct; and bending a pressing portion toward the guide rail to press a face adjacent to the one peripheral face of the duct, thereby fixing the hanger to the duct.
According to the hanging method having such proceedings, the duct can be easily and quickly hung by means of the hanging member. Besides, if the duct is subjected to the external force from downward, it remains engaged without xe2x80x9cplayxe2x80x9d. Further, the opposite sides of the duct can be hung at different positions.
According to the duct hanger and the hanging method using the hanger according to the invention, a hanging operation can be easily and quickly carried out and the duct remains engaged if the upward acceleration (external force) is applied on the duct.
Since the hanger, and the hanger particularly according to Claim 2 can be manufactured by press-forming, easily and with a high extraction rate, it can be embodied at a low cost as compared to the conventional hanger.